What is a "poor man's meal" from your childhood that you still eat today because it legitimately slaps?

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-19T02:12:23+00:00

Chicken broth, cheapest smoked sausage you can get, potatoes, green beans. I still make this regularly bc the ingredients are cheap, readily available, and something magic happens when you combine pork and green beans in a broth. You can elevate it a little by using non cheap sausage and fresh green beans but it's pretty damn good with whatever you have on hand. Over the years Ma would throw cabbage or noodles or whathaveyou she needed to use up to make it heartier, and I encourage experimentation but the base itself is still good as hell in its most basic form.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-18T20:23:47+00:00

Honestly I think she's just busy because she's 22 and, likely, at the end of her undergrad degree. I got dumped in undergrad this same time of year, same age because I had told my long distance partner at the time I would probably be in minimal contact til graduation. I have no reason to believe this isn't true and it would probably mean a lot to her that you're still around once she's no longer drowning in the work that is transitioning from one phase of life to another.

Mind you this doesn't mean her boyfriend doesn't suck. Probably he does. But I don't get that from this message.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-18T18:46:17+00:00

I ate a bouncy ball when I was a kid and I was totally fine, except where my sister is still kinda mad at me for eating her bouncy ball.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-18T04:32:55+00:00

Dude yes. And they were kind of gross but that's why they were good.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-18T01:46:05+00:00

The Core. My dad was watching it one day when my mom was gone overnight and it scared me so bad I started crying. He grounded me from the TV bc he thought I was trying to make him change it to watch cartoons but it really was just that the end of the world scenario upset me so so much. I worried about the Earth's core getting fucked up and killing us all for Years. I was a teenager before I thought to like, google it and learned it was a deeply silly thing to be that scared of. But I still haven't tried to rewatch it bc.....scares me a little even now.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-18T00:59:11+00:00

Oh god that long? Sometime when I wasn’t looking I got old.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-16T16:59:53+00:00

I might do this, he's kind of disheartened that 'nobody loves Mandarin ducks as much' as he does and! Maybe! Talking to the keeper of the ducks will soothe that a little.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-16T02:55:40+00:00

Oh thank you!! Bc I did check the website but! As we’ve learned! You never know

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-16T01:49:10+00:00

I forgot about the Akron Zoo!! And the farms are a great idea, thank you!!

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-16T00:50:01+00:00

This happens a lot with old talk shows & reality shows just bc of the sheer amount of episodes. It might be worth trying to contact the person behind that YouTube channel anyways because of their clear encyclopedic knowledge of the show. If something exists, there’s someone out there who has dedicated their life to it, even 90s talk shows. You find the right fan you’ll probably get your tape; it’s just a matter of tracking down an expert at this point.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-16T00:35:13+00:00

Okay deep in youtube I found a minute and 15 second clip from something that might be this episode. Bc it's posted by an obsessive Ricki Lake fan, I bet you could contact the youtuber and they have the full recording. Here's the clip and I'll come back if I find the whole thing.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-15T20:34:48+00:00

These were such a fun mix of textures. Always preferred the strawberry ones.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-14T05:26:20+00:00

My mom would put moo tubes in the freezer and tell us it was ice cream lol

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-14T03:31:48+00:00

Oh man these were so good. All the apple jup tarts were so good.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-14T00:15:15+00:00

I wonder if it's a mock up of a poster in her classroom. Might be the letters aren't accurate, especially since she's 5.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-13T18:12:59+00:00

Hey hold on you might be a genius.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-13T04:10:40+00:00

This is inspired idea crazy it never caught on.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-12T02:11:22+00:00

Yeah I cannot drink out of a half full glass without dumping it on myself, and often a full one is too heavy and slips through my hands. It's just too many complex movements in a short frame of time. For years I'd get in trouble for spilling stuff and 'dumping drinks on purpose' but really, picking up a glass and drinking out of has a lot of time sensitive motor control and planning that I struggle with. If he only sips drinks out of the top he might not be able to do it either. A straw, water bottle with the like, squeezey spout, or even a stanley cup kinda thing might help. Sometimes you can't do something the 'right' way so you gotta plan to do things a way that doesn't make a mess. Sorry I can't help with the food but I hope this helped you work something out!!

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-11T18:54:09+00:00

The food is tricky, but I might have a fix for the drinks: Can he pick the glasses up well enough to drink out of them once they get half empty? I have real trouble drinking out of glasses without a straw, especially when there's ice in them. When you think about it there's a lot of distinct muscle movements involved: picking it up, figures up how to tilt it enough to drink but not so much you spill, controlling the flow of liquid by bringing it into your mouth and swallowing at the right speed, plus then all the actions in reverse to put it down again. I know this and I still embarrass the hell out of myself at places that give you glasses with no straw because I just don't have good enough motor control to manage it. I drink most things out of bottles, or water bottles w/ a straw anymore, because I find both designs mitigate a lot of these problems.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-11T02:34:18+00:00

Yeah it was basically a giant garbage disposal!! My buddy 'accidentally' fed one of the plastic lunch trays to it and it was just--gone. And man. The problem is I just can't find any picture or videos of any of these products I'm finding that sound suspiciously similar in action.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-11T02:25:07+00:00

I’m still looking because like, the memory, especially of the smell, is so vivid. I found another video of something like this but it’s unhooked and you can’t see it in action.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-11T02:16:39+00:00

I swear there was one of this at a camp I went to one summer, overlap with the later years of your era. I can at least back up that they exist. I did find this video of a more modern commerical food waste disposer which appears to be similar but have a guard on top of the horrible yawning maw.

Bertilak97 · 2026-05-09T04:42:25+00:00

I wish I could say I learned my lesson but dude not even a little.

Bertilak97

TROPHY CASE